A Psychoanalyst’s Fashion Fantasy

Milan is all about what you desire—and what you’ll do to get it.

It’s my first time in Milan for fashion week. First time, full send. The kind of week where your body is in Italy but your brain is buffering in three different time zones. I landed fresh off London Fashion Week and went straight from the airport to Glenn Martens’ Diesel show. Overstimulated the second I touched down? Yes. Stressed? A little.

But here’s the thing about Milan: If London is about ideas and Paris is about spectacle, Milan is about desire turned into product. Precision. Body-ody-ody. Client. Clothes that are meant to be worn, bought, hunted down on Vinted decades later. I handled it with the calm of someone who has survived worse for fashion. Espresso in hand. Carbonara pending. Prego!

Diesel opened the week like a hangover you secretly enjoyed. The set alone was a museum of chaos. There were around 50,000 pieces of archival Diesel memorabilia presented under bright lights. The clothes carried that same next-day energy—twisting, wrapping, creasing. Denim baked into permanent memory. Knitwear boiled down from supersized. Jeans with hidden ankle slits designed to slide over stilettos, secured with hook-and-eye closures “for extra kink.” Whether it was simply another chapter or something more conclusive (fashion loves to speculate), Martens staged it like a moment.

I arrived at Prada obscenely early, which meant I had time to reflect on my life and my sleep deprivation. The Deposito at Fondazione Prada was layered with centuries-old objects like antique mirrors, paintings, consoles. A space that felt like a dream partially dismantled. The usual pre-show hum started. Carrie Mulligan. Sarah Pidgeon. Editors craning. Then the room shifted when Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan walked in. Unexpected. Intriguing.

Then the clothes started, and the room snapped back into attention. The collection was built around the idea of layering as reality. Clothes worn through a day, transformed through life, memories embedded like hidden architecture. Mrs. P and Raf Simons said it was “an embrace of inherent pluralities,” which sounds lofty until you see it and realize it’s just… true. Tailoring layered with sportswear, embroidered satin dresses thrown into contradiction with more rational pieces. It’s the non-hierarchical mixing that felt distinctly Prada.

And the casting made the concept literal. 15 women, each walking multiple times, in four looks each. Bella Hadid appeared. Then again. Then again. The repetition wasn’t redundancy, it was narrative. A woman as multitudes. And backstage afterward? Absolute chaos. The kind where you’re shoved by a blazer and a bodyguard at the same time, and you have to keep your face neutral like, yes, of course, I meant to be pressed into this wall.

Ever the Prada optimist, Nick Tran, Dover Street Market Paris’s head of buying and merchandising, chimed in after. “Another reminder, as if you needed one, that Prada never goes out of style,” he says. “I loved the nods to some of my favorite collections, especially the embroideries and hand-knit scarves from Fall 2017, and the fur-trim sport parka I’ll now be hunting down on Vinted.”

I couldn’t get a taxi to Gucci. I couldn’t get a friend. So I walked for an hour. It’s what I do for the culture. I arrived at the Palazzo Delle Scintille drenched in sweat and immediately body-checked by social editors and paparazzi. For the love of fashion, yes. But also, can we all behave like we’ve been outside before?

Inside, the venue masqueraded as marble fantasy. Wood pretending to be stone. Statues that felt suspiciously light (read: styrofoam). The front row was cinematic. Romeo Beckham. Shawn Mendes. Steve Lacey. Demi Moore with Pilaf. Paris and Nicky Hilton. EsDee Kid, carrying a giant Gucci bag full of weed (according to him!). The internet’s favorite disruptors mingling with legacy glamour. And then the runway: Fake Mink. Nettspend. Emily Ratajkowski in a slinky silver mini. Gabbriette. Vittoria. Stella Maxwell. Alex Consani. Maria Carla Boscono. Vivian Wilson. Slouchy new Jackie bags. Faux fur. Loafer slides. Bare skin. Body as statement.

And the closer? KATE. FUCKING. MOSS. In a shimmering black dress with its back blown open to reveal the iconic Gucci thong detail with a GG emblem. The Tom Ford echo was loud and honestly correct. If you’re going to flirt with that era, you bring Kate. Post-show, The Face’s senior fashion features editor Eni Subair said, “The casting of internet rappers alongside Kate felt like a respectful remix that still had Demna’s stamp.”

Later, cutting through the adrenaline, an anonymous editor said something that lingered far longer than the bassline. Speaking about the predominantly skinny casting, they admitted: “I left the show wanting to be the new-era Gucci girl, and I hate myself for it.”

That evening, we returned to the venue for the after-party, which quickly devolved into a full-blown mosh pit when EsDee Kid, Fake Mink, and Rico Ace took over. It was feral and electric. I found myself at the very front for the sake of content, clutching my jumbo Chanel to protect it from the kids sweating out Axe body spray. I felt approximately one thousand years old.

Simone Bellotti’s Jil Sander was the palate cleanser I didn’t know I needed. I walked in with zero expectations and walked out slightly altered, which is my favorite kind of fashion week surprise. Shoulderlines lifted. Collars slipped backward. Pockets drifted. Fabric allowances swung. The skirts, especially, had details that felt genuinely exciting. Not flashy. Not loud. Just… smart.

Then Fendi. Maria Grazia Chiuri’s debut, anchored by her motto: “Less I, more us.” The front row told the story before the first look walked. Clients in head-to-toe Fendi. Women who do not dress for the algorithm, they dress for their lives. Lunches. Boardrooms. Flights. Real schedules. Chiuri understands that woman. The suiting was efficient. The palette, predominantly black. I craved a jolt of color, sure, but it made sense in that room. Milan is not embarrassed to make clothes for women who actually buy them.

MM6, meanwhile, felt like catching a train and deciding your entire personality is now a checked shirt, a horse-print fleece, and an earring still in its selling kit. Practical. Slightly odd. Completely wearable. I wanted half of it immediately.

If Prada was philosophy and Gucci was provocation, Marni was recalibration. Meryll Rogge’s debut felt tender in a week obsessed with body and product. You could sense it in the room—a softness, a return to codes rather than a reinvention of them. The first look nodded to Consuelo Castiglioni’s original Marni language, that specific funky woman-ness that feels like a secret handshake for people with taste and a job. Patterns, overt stitching, Prealps mountaineer references, sportswear fused with tailoring. Memory reshaped into something wearable. Menswear had moments, but for me it wasn’t as accomplished as the womenswear. That’s okay. Debuts are seeds, not full-grown trees.

After the show, Vogue Business features director Lucy Maguire put it plainly. “It really is good to see more women leading luxury houses,” she said. “And this was a strong start for Meryll Rogge. I can see it selling!”

Ferragamo, under Maximilian Davis, leaned into sailors and migration, uniforms undone and reconstructed. Workwear parkas in textured nappa. Slip dresses in foiled velvet lamé. A speakeasy undercurrent. Styled by Lotta Volkova, it felt cool and sharp without losing emotion.

And then Bottega Veneta, serene and disciplined, the most organized show of the week (luxury brands… take note). A red carpet that made even my exhausted self stand taller. Lauren Hutton in the room. Pa Salieu. Daisy Edgar-Jones. Julianne Moore, who was, genuinely, the warmest celebrity encounter of my week. Kind eyes. Present. She smiled for a photo.

The collection leaned into “structures, softened.” Intimacy as protection. Maria Callas and Pasolini noted as references, operatic but grounded in craft. Connor Downey, social media manager at Lyst, agreed. “It was such a delight,” he beamed. “The collection, with thin beanies, broad shoulders and that wonky-collar styling, really captured the zeitgeist.”

As I sit filing this at CDG before the shows kick off, it strikes me that fashion month isn’t a tour, it’s a relay race in really gorge jackets (I’ve brought six ofc), and I’ve just passed the Milan baton straight into a croissant.

And for my little Kesslers, because I am nothing if not generous, here are a few Milan spots to chow down.

Yapa – Incredibly chic fusion omakase with the kind of crowd that makes you sit up straighter. You better book.

Da Giacomo (the restaurant, not the Bistrot next door) – The most gorgeous meal I had all week. Old-school Milan glamour, white tablecloth energy, and lobster pasta that made me consider relocating.

Trattoria Milanese 1933 – Moody service, fabulous lunch. The tortellini and meatballs were worth the attitude.

Le Specialità – Influencers everywhere, British Vogue’s Chioma Nnadi, as well as me, Eni, and Ted Stansfield of Dazed dining together… so yes, it was extremely fashion. Food solid, service leisurely, gossip flowing.

Don Lisander – Dark wood, serious energy, and the kind of traditional Milanese cooking that feels like a quiet flex. Go when you want to feel like you’ve been in the city for years.